Sure, but it’s not really clear from that quote what the situation is. Do Canadians fall outside the I-94 system altogether, or is it just that paper I-94s are never issued to them even at land borders.
My Grandpa (in England, in the late '70s and early '80s) used to drive on a Saudi licence he got while working over there. There was no English writing on it, and no police officer had any idea what to do with it, so when he got caught speeding, they just stared at it for a bit and told him not to do it again…
I somehow doubt that one would still work.
It depends on whose car she was driving and who is the registered owner. In some states, maybe all of them, a person driving a car plated and titled in their own name must have a drivers license issued by the same state. If the woman was driving a car with Georgia plates and Ontario DL, and the car was legally registered in her name, she’s in violation. That particular law would have nothing to do with Canada.
Well, we certainly do not get paper I-94s at land borders, as I have attested. It is possible that Canadians are somehow within the I-94 system, as our passports are scanned by CBP, but the paperwork never appears to us.
As a Canadian, I’ve been to the US hundreds of times. The only times I was issued an I-94 was when I received TN Status, a NAFTA work permit, 3 or 4 times over the last 20 years.
Not just in Georgia. In many states you can get arrested for motor vehicle violations.
On cop discussion board I was reading about this case. She shouldn’t have been cited for no license but it’s pretty standard to arrest someone for a motor vehicle violation with a foreign or even out of state license. They are brought in and see a judge right away then released. It’s felt that there is nothing to compel an appearence for someone who lives out of state. Personally I think it’s a waste of everyone’s time and it’s nearly impossible to get a motor vehicle warrant in my state. The exception is DWI which is an arrestable offense but still considered a motor vehicle violation.
I got an I-94 when I was in the US on an F-1 student visa. Never otherwise.
Am I the only one thinking that there has to be more to the story? I mean, of course it’s possible that a poor decision has been made by one or more police officers/officials, but it’s also possible that the woman was acting up in some way that meant she was dealt differently from usual. Perhaps the ‘charge’ of driving on a foreign licence was a technicality designed to inconvenience her. I have no additional facts here, just a reminder that there are 2 sides to every story.
So far, though, we’ve seen exactly nothing to indicate this is true - but even so - how can the cops inventing a nonsense charge actually be justified by the civilian ‘acting up’?
If she was harassing the cops, then charge her with whatever the local equivalent of harassing the cops is. Don’t invent a charge that, actually, doesn’t exist. There is simply nothing that can justify that and no reasonable ‘other side’ to the story, if this is what she was charged with - that is, if the facts are substantially correct (and again we’ve seen nothing to indicate they aren’t).
Also - for those who may not know - in Ontario, the driver’s license is a substantial piece of ID, often used for “official ID” purposes - it has your picture on it and various security features.
did you read the thread? :dubious:
anyone else think just avoiding Georgia might be a good idea?
I’m a Canadian who spent several years living in the U.S.
I was only issued an I-94 when I was living there on a visa, and have never received one otherwise.
Now that logic makes some sense to me. Though it seems odd to me that there wouldn’t be some sort of agreement with Canada of all places to deal with that problem.
Still, my understanding was that she was kept there for a few days. She even apparently opened a Reddit thread asking for advice, because she was so scared. Does that count as “right away”?
So, presuming this was a shakedown, the technical legal cover for this is that anyone can get arrested and jailed for speeding. And they can choose to enforce this if someone has a license they don’t like the look of, even if the license is valid.
So I guess that means the victim doesn’t really have any case for false arrest. Making the arrest was ok, just one of the charges was incorrect.
In all my years of traveling to the US probably more than a hundred times, I’d never even heard of an I-94 form until now.
Agreed. Further corroboration that there wasn’t anything more to this than is in the story is that the prosecutor moved to dismiss all charges, a judge signed off on it, and they are now taking the unusual step of erasing the arrest record.
The story quotes the prosecutor as saying that the one complicating factor was her mentioning that she “lived in Tennessee”. She is Canadian and was in Tennessee doing graduate studies on a student visa. This is not a difficult concept to grasp even for a cop who might not be particularly bright.
What would an agreement with Canada do? The recourse for not showing up for a ticket is a bench warrant. No one is going to extradite for a traffic ticket from the next state let alone from another country.
The article in the OP states she posted bond and then stayed around to get the charges dismissed. Georgia law says she has to see a judge within 48 hours. The ones I’ve seen talk about it say they take arrestees directly to the judge after processing. I’m assuming that can be different depending on the availability of judges.
If that’s true, isn’t that a problem for her? Usually you have to obtain a local driver’s license within a fairly short time if living somewhere.
I didn’t when I was in the US on a student visa (three years) and an actual student, only needed to get a local license once I wasn’t a student any more (the visa was still the same but I wasn’t enrolled).
I run into a lot of foreign students. In my state if you are on a long term visa you must get a state drivers license. The only visible difference is the expiration date is the end of the visa and not the end of the month.
Touring privledges for foreign nationals are for tourists. Permenant residents must be licensed in state. If you are in the country for over a year or working and try to drive on your countries license then you are considered unlicensed.
That’s true, though we don’t know the circumstances – maybe she didn’t have a car there and was driving down to move out (she had completed her degree). But if she did fail to get a Tennessee license as required in Tennessee, this should not be a concern in Georgia.